The Art of Keeping Brainwashed Assassins Safe in Nuclear Apocalypses
by ravenously
Summary: Operation INSIGHT went off without a hitch, much to Steve Roger's displeasure. Unfortunately for everyone, it targeted and ultimately unleashed several nuclear weapons. Now any city with a claim to its name is gone, and the world has been plunged into a permanent winter of toxic radiation and almost no electricity. And through it all, Steve's just trying to keep his family safe.


He's huddling under a makeshift blanket, every limb shaking and making the mound of fabric bounce up and down in an erratic fashion. The motion hasn't stopped in thirty minutes, and the only reason Steve hasn't tried to calm him down is because he's staying put, at least. Bucky (The Winter Soldier) was prowling before, like a dog on a short leash and it was grating on every one of his nerves.

A lot has been grating on his nerves lately. Maybe it's because of how hungry he is, these days.

Steve carts a glance to the other corner of the disgusting, ramshackle shed, where Tony is blinking up from another wad of blankets, hair matted on one side from blood, the other standing in normal feathery relief. Tony offers him a quick quirk to his lips and a blink, before he straightens, stretching out his limbs. There's a series of pops and cracks that remind Steve that Tony is likely at least ten years older than him, physically, that he's more prone to human creaks and faults.

The shuddering in the other corner stills for a moment, Bucky's face peeking out from the mound of blankets, and he relaxes once he sees that it's just Steve and Tony in the room. He had been too vacant, too gone before to really see them. There's a few more shudders and jerks before he manages to will his body into submission, sitting up with the blankets wrapped firmly around him.

Any other time and Steve would be griping at him to share the blankets, 'cause they're all cold these days, but he can't bring it in himself to do it. The man in front of him may look like Bucky, but he is nothing like his friend, would likely be thrown into a panic if Steve did so much as make a lightly insulting joke.

"Natalia?" He asks, slowly, and his voice is gravelly and flat, even while Bucky's eyes are wide and almost childish in how they hold anyone's attention. Steve notices absently, looking down at where Bucky's hands are fisted in the blankets, that there's blood underneath his fingernails.

"She's covering our tracks." Steve replies, and he slips the hat he's been wearing off his head, scratching at his scalp.

The shed of a room is freezing, and it takes everything in him not to shiver, even bundled up as he is, and all Steve allows himself to do is curl closer to himself in his corner of the room. One would think, stepping inside, that each man was too far away from each other, that they were distanced and cold with one another.

Maybe for a normal group, that would be true. But Bucky has nightmares and neither Tony, Natasha nor Steve want to be on the end of one of his fits. And whoever's keeping watch doesn't want to be sitting right next to someone sleeping, for fear of their cadenced breath swallowing them down, as well.

But now, now that they're all awake, Bucky clutches his blankets closer and slinks over to Steve, burrowing into his side as he sits down. It makes Steve's heart flutter with happiness- at his trust- and sorrow that he's been made into this hollow husk of a man. He doesn't show any of this, however, just raises a hand to pat absently at Bucky's long hair, stringing his fingers through the greasy locks. He hasn't managed to find clean water in a few days, not clean enough to wash in.

Tony eventually comes to sit closer to the two of them, collapsing onto the ground with a short wheeze and a quick, "_Jesus_, and I thought Snowmegaddon in Chicago a few years back was bad." He says he's okay with his breathing, but Steve has always known how to read breathing, had _had_ to, back when he was not just mentally, but physically small. And he understands that Tony got his heart fixed, but he also knows that heart surgery takes a lot out of anyone for up to years, and Tony's wasn't exactly text-book safe.

He coughs, and Steve gives him a concerned look, and even Bucky tenses from some half-formed memory of the danger of coughing, but Tony waves them off, scrabbling a hand down his scruffy face. There's grey in there, these days.

If they weren't tired before, they're all exhausted now, bone-weary just as fast as the cold seeps into the crooks and nannies of their bodies. And though the atmosphere of the shack isn't comfortable, it sure is trusting, and warm with their presence so close.

With any luck, Natasha will finish her work, they can eat a mediocre meal and continue on West, and then South.

Well. Luck hasn't exactly been on their side, but if he's one thing, Steve is optimistic. Or maybe determined is the better word here.

**_ooooOooo_**

They didn't stop operation INSIGHT. It went off without a hitch.

Well. At first.

Something went wrong. Not only did it target specific people, but specific _things. _And if it weren't all so hush-hush, the kinks probably would have been worked out.

No one's sure what exactly happened, what exactly went off. They _do_ know that New York is a nuclear wasteland, DC might as well be a toxic landmine, and Chicago has been dropped off the map. L.A and Berlin and London and Paris. Tokyo and Beijing and Cairo. All the major cities of the world.

It's like a bad nightmare, one that Steve knows all too well, one that ended up with him on the ice for seventy years at the hand of a half-mad Red-skulled man.

The nuclear waste from the events created a fallout so intense, it was only because they were with Tony Stark and his genius of a mind that they survived. Well, others survived, too, but that was more hit and miss than with them four.

Destroyed almost any major energy grids- they would have had Stark's replenishable energy, but those are long gone, New York's long gone- and with it electricity, and most major modern _things. _

And the plunge from nuclear waste and fallout all but destroyed the atmosphere, blocking out so much of the sun that it may be September, but it's colder than most Midwest winters get.

The world has stopped living and started frantically surviving. Avenger and supersoldier or not, surviving is difficult. And with surviving, Steve now has a broken husk of a man he once knew, a shell-shocked genius and an assassin to take care of. He doesn't even want to think about what that all makes him, except numb.

**_ooooOoooo_**

"Good new and bad news." Natasha announces when she strolls on into the shed, flipping her braided hair to the other side in a deliberate gesture. Her voice is sudden and loud enough to rouse Bucky from his doze, and he sits up suddenly, back ramrod straight and his hair hanging in curtains in front of his face. He's still, as though waiting for direction, and Steve has to bodily push him back down and shush him to get the man to relax, at all.

"Yeah? Bad news first. I'm gettin' used to it these days." Tony says, sitting up from where he'd slumped against Steve's shoulder, blinking wearily at Natasha. He scratches at one of his knuckles, which had been broken open earlier, and frowns at the sluggish movement of blood where he cuts open the scabs.

Natasha adjusts her black fur coat, somehow looking completely functional and at ease despite the whole nuclear fallout thing- and Steve is certain she could fit herself in any setting and _thrive_- dropping the hood down from her head. "Bad news is that the goons that attacked us earlier weren't just goons but _grunts. _For some bigger band of nasties."

Tony groans and Steve gives a world-weary sigh. Bucky just sits up straighter and gives a vague, bitter smile before relaxing the arch of his back, all but pressing the spine into Steve's hand. God, he's like a goddamned dog sometimes.

"So we gotta move quickly, then." Steve says, nodding sharply. He doesn't want to have to fight anymore. Not when it made Bucky regress further and Tony's breathing to act up again. Not when they all have smaller wounds and, yeah, that wouldn't have been a problem, but considering they have nothing to _clean_ the wounds with, it could be.

"Yeeeuup." Natasha pops her 'p' and gives a deliberate, wide eyed expression, dropping a knife to the ground when she slumps against the wall near them. It's only then that Steve can see how utterly exhausted she is, knows that she's been taking care of the fallout of the fight earlier in the day while him and Tony took turns getting the rest of their little flock some rest.

It's fucked, all of it, but it's what it is now.

"Should probably move out in… Well, we can move now." Natasha gives a tired smile, drawing up her hood again with a shiver. "Good news is, I found a truck with a full tank of gas and another couple of tanks stored in those red can things in the back."

Tony gives a stuttered sigh of relief, and mutters out a 'thank fucking Christ' and Steve smiles, slightly, if only for a moment. Good. A car that can get them closer _WestthenSouth- _A fucking mantra, to be simple- is a blessing. Even if it only lasts a few of the former US states. Movement is movement and anything that takes them as far away from the toxic, clogged cities is good.

Steve tries his best not to remember lazy Brooklyn summers back in the 30's, tries not yearn for a home in a city that doesn't even exist anymore.

**_ooooOoooo_**

Since they managed to wrangle Bucky into staying with them, into fighting the preliminary mission of _kill Steve Rogers_- because missions like that didn't matter anymore, not in a world where civilization and Hydra and SHIELD were all dead- Bucky has seemed to defer all command over to first Steve, then Natasha and lastly Tony. This fact irks Tony to no end, but then again, it's the guilty sort of irking.

None of them should be _happy_ that Bucky, even after weeks of apocalyptic ruin and no Hydra, still has little autonomy, still depends on the three of them to a fault. Though, it does help, even as fucked up as it is, when they can get a petulant and grumpy Bucky in the backseat of the truck with a sharp order that makes him straighten his back and climb in immediately.

Even if he does immediately push down the back seats to make the back of the truck more like a bed, he still listens. So yes, there's hints of rebellion and emotion, hints of autonomy, but he still won't eat without prompting, usually won't speak unless it's a direct question.

He wraps more blankets around himself- they have more blankets than food, these days- and curls up in the corner, eyes just peeking out from under where he has made a virtual nest. Steve glances back at him and rubs a hand down his scruffy face, giving a vague smile. "All good back there, Buck?" He asks, getting himself more comfortable in the passenger seat.

Bucky nods, then yawns widely like a cat, wide enough that it leaves him blinking in surprise, the blanket hood on his head falling down slightly. "Okay." He raises a metal hand to brush back some of his hair, then huddles more firmly under blankets after a chill leaves him cold. Bucky has stopped being able to deal with the cold so well, gets chilled faster than all three of them and constantly has an abundance of layers on. Steve tries not to think about it. "Can I go to sleep?"

That's another thing that's slightly inconvenient in their trek across the country- Bucky seems to have grown weary from the trauma he's been through, and sleeps more than a damned cat, curling up and sleeping whenever he's given the chance. He asks first, usually, even though the three of them had tried to get him to stop, then just drops and sleeps.

He's only dreamt a couple times, as far as Steve can tell, and none of them were Winter Soldier dreams, but ones that made him wake up with a hazy smile and a childlike rendition of something that happened in his and Steve's youth. It was endearing as much as soul-shattering.

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Only if I can sleep with you." Natasha says as she vaults into the back seat, lifting up her hood once more. The black is in such contrast to the red of her hair, and Bucky seems enthralled by it, always seems enthralled by anything entirely colourful or anything that carries a lot of scent or pleasant sound. Steve supposes that after years of sensual deprivation, he would crave vibrancy, in whichever pattern he got it.

Bucky nods, slowly, and Natasha lifts up his blanket nest, curling up right next to him. He seems shocked at first, but then she pats at his head and he calms, actually pushing into her more so that they're laying flush in their little curled up nest. Bucky lifts up the blanket 'hood' and carts it over himself to hide his face, and then all they are is a giant lump that moves as they get themselves comfortable.

Steve watches after them until Tony breaks him out of his reverie, sliding into the truck with a couple of curses and almost no grace, and once he gets settles, the man taps on the steering wheel, then slants a look at the keys. "Ugh. I miss Jarvis." He moans, running a hand through his hair and trying to go through the blood-matted tangles.

"Are you okay to drive for a while?" Steve asks, ignoring Tony's self-wallowing pointedly, ignoring the fact that Tony misses his fucking AI.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just. Jarvis could have played _music_ for us." Steve knows that's not the reason Tony said it, knows that the AI that had nearly begun to be _human_ in consciousness acted avuncular and kind of Tony, and he craved it. (Knows that it's easier to miss Jarvis the AI than it is to miss Pepper the human.)

Tony gets the engine started, which makes Bucky shudder for a few moments, before Natasha gets him calmed down again, carefully threading fingers through his hair in a half-assed attempt at braiding them, the man giving a soft sigh as he burrows into Natasha's form.

"Get me a guitar and I'll play you music, Tony." Steve replies, shaking his head slightly.

"Aw, fuck, and I bet you can _actually_ play, too. None of that, 'anyways, here's Wonderwall' shit." Tony lets the truck warm up for a few moments, cutting the heat output down to conserve gas- much as they would love to be warm in the compartment, it's much safer to just huddle and bundle up than it is to waste such precious fuel.

Steve gives him a look of incomprehension, and Tony throws his hands up, shaking his head. "Hey, man, I was saying you're _good_, take the compliment and run with it before I puke at how nice I'm being."

"Just drive."

"Fine, fine." Tony grumbles, pulling the car out of its motionless stance and urging her to move quickly, _please. _They do, actually, have to get away from the area quick as they can. "Take a nap, Cap. You're grumpy as hell. Find you a fucking Snickers."

Steve gets himself comfortable in the passenger seat, reaching in the back for his own blanket, draping it over himself. "Just for a few hours, okay? Wake me up before any of the others, and I'll take over." He doesn't want to sleep and leave Tony to his own devices, but he hasn't been able to nod off in over a day and a half. Normally, for him, that would be fine, but in this new world of hard to find food and freezing, metabolism-deliberating conditions, he needs all the rest he can get. Especially after a high-adrenaline fight.

He waits until he hears Tony's grunt of affirmation then settles himself against the window, sliding his eyes shut. He runs a hand down slowly thinning cheeks, getting gaunter every day (just like all of them, even Natasha), and forces himself to sleep. Good thing about being military is that he's learned to sleep when he can, to drop off at the beat of a pin.

And so he sleeps, and the only thing he can be happy about is that his small family unit is safe and warm for the time being.


End file.
